Oil falls on Trump’s latest trade threats

NEW YORK — Oil prices fell about 2% on Friday after US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China, reigniting fears of a trade war between the world’s two largest economies that could hurt global growth.

Mr. Trump said on Thursday he had ordered US trade officials to consider tariffs on an extra $100 billion of imports from China, escalating tensions with Beijing.

China warned on Friday it was fully prepared to respond with a “fierce counter strike” of fresh trade measures if the US follows through on Mr. Trump’s threat.

“The heightened possibility of an outright tariff war is conjuring up images of slowed economic growth that could curtail the strong oil demand that has helped to revive a strong pricing environment during the past couple of months,” Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, said in a note.

Brent crude futures settled down $1.22 at $67.11 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate ( WTI) crude futures fell $1.48 to $62.06 a barrel, a 2.3% loss.

Brent crude dropped 2.8% in the week while US crude fell 4.4%, the biggest weekly decline since early February.

US stock indexes also fell on trade war jitters, which weighed on oil prices. Crude futures have recently tracked with equities.

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries member Libya’s oil output is at around 1.05 million barrels per day ( bpd)despite a continuing outage since February at its 70,000 bpd El Feel oilfield, a Libyan oil source told Reuters on Friday.

US drillers added 11 oil rigs in the week to April 6, bringing the total count up to 808, the highest level since March 2015, General Electric Co.’s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday. —